Occidental Chemical Corp

Oxy to Fire 450 at Chemical Unit: Occidental Petroleum Corp. said it will save about $100 million a year by cutting the jobs at its Occidental Chemical Corp. subsidiary in Dallas. Los Angeles-based Occidental also said it will eliminate the separate international division at OxyChem. The chemical unit's remaining four business divisions--basic chemicals, petrochemicals, polymers and plastic and specialty chemicals--will handle their own worldwide management of products, the company said.

Could it be that Occidental Petroleum Corp. is finally ready for redemption? After two decades of delivering lackluster growth and inviting investors' wrath--Occidental stock is worth less today than 20 years ago--the energy and chemical company is at last showing signs of a genuine rebound. Some of the credit, of course, goes to the recent surge in crude-oil prices, to their highest levels in nearly two years.

Occidental Chemical Corp. and Olin Corp. reached a $7.1-million settlement in the last of four cases in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, N.Y., the site of one of the most famous U.S. toxic waste disasters. For cleanup costs, the companies will reimburse the federal government $6 million and the state of New York $610,000, and will pay $500,000 for damaging natural resources, federal and state agencies said in Washington, D.C.

EPA Imposes Superfund Order on Oxy, Olin: Unable to reach a cleanup agreement for the 102nd Street landfill Superfund site in Niagara Falls, N.Y., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued an administrative order to Olin Corp. and Occidental Chemical Corp., a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp., to accept the agency's plan.

Occidental Chemical Corp. and Olin Corp. reached a $7.1-million settlement in the last of four cases in the Love Canal area of Niagara Falls, N.Y., the site of one of the most famous U.S. toxic waste disasters. For cleanup costs, the companies will reimburse the federal government $6 million and the state of New York $610,000, and will pay $500,000 for damaging natural resources, federal and state agencies said in Washington, D.C.

A federal judge ruled that Occidental Chemical Corp. is liable for the multimillion-dollar cost of cleaning up the Love Canal landfill at Niagara Falls, N.Y. After nine years of deliberations, U.S. District Judge John Curtin said Occidental produced the wastes that created the environmental problem and stored them in a way that would eventually result in toxic leakage.

A federal district court judge ruled that Occidental Chemical Corp. can be held liable for punitive damages at Love Canal, as well as for compensation for cleaning up the toxic chemical dump. The ruling, released Monday, sets the stage for additional trials on whether other parties must share Occidental's liability and on how much the company will pay in damages, a spokeswoman for state Atty. Gen. Robert Abrams said.

Taking a big step toward closing a case that raised the nation's concern about buried toxic waste, Occidental Chemical Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay the state of New York $98 million to settle one of the key civil lawsuits over Love Canal. The company also agreed to take over monitoring and cleanup of the Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood--a chore that the New York attorney general's office estimates will cost an additional $25 million over the next 30 years.

Occidental Chemical Shuns Vietnam Venture: The unit of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp. has pulled out of a $109-million polyvinyl chloride resin venture in southern Vietnam, the Vietnam Investment Review said. The state-controlled weekly said Occidental Chemical Corp. walked away from the venture with Marubeni Corp. and two local firms because the authorities had licensed a rival project. The venture, Oxy-Vina Plastics & Chemical Co.

Ending a 16-year legal case that became synonymous with toxic pollution, the Clinton administration announced Thursday that Occidental Chemical Corp. has agreed to pay $129 million to the federal government for its cost of cleaning up the Love Canal neighborhood near Niagara Falls. The settlement is one of the biggest enforcement actions pursued by the government under the Superfund law, the Environmental Protection Agency said.

Taking a big step toward closing a case that raised the nation's concern about buried toxic waste, Occidental Chemical Corp. agreed Tuesday to pay the state of New York $98 million to settle one of the key civil lawsuits over Love Canal. The company also agreed to take over monitoring and cleanup of the Niagara Falls, N.Y., neighborhood--a chore that the New York attorney general's office estimates will cost an additional $25 million over the next 30 years.

Occidental Chemical Corp. does not have to pay New York punitive damages for the Love Canal contamination that forced hundreds of people to abandon their homes, a judge ruled Thursday. New York had sought penalties of up to $250 million from Occidental, the corporate successor to Hooker Chemicals & Plastics Corp., which dumped 22,000 tons of hazardous waste at Love Canal in the 1940s and 1950s. But U.S.

EPA Imposes Superfund Order on Oxy, Olin: Unable to reach a cleanup agreement for the 102nd Street landfill Superfund site in Niagara Falls, N.Y., the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued an administrative order to Olin Corp. and Occidental Chemical Corp., a subsidiary of Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum Corp., to accept the agency's plan.